Tourist congestion study gets favourable reception - The idea of moving Michelangelo's David to a new site on the outskirts of Florence got a boost on Monday.
Tuscany's cultural chief Paolo Cocchi received a favourable reception when he suggested studying tourist congestion in the city centre.
''An in-depth study is needed to look at ways of easing the pressure on the main tourist areas,'' Cocchi said.
The city government's culture committee said they liked the proposal.
''The vast majority of tourists visit the triangle between the Uffizi, Santa Croce and the Accademia,'' said committee chief Dario Nardella.
''If we look ahead to coming years, when millions of tourists will arrive from Asia, we have to ask ourselves whether the city will still be able to sustain this situation''.
Cocchi launched his initiative last month, proposing that the famous statue should be moved from the central Accademia museum to the future location of the Maggio Fiorentino festival theatre, on the site of a defunct local railway station. The David ''shouldn't be kept in a museum where hundreds of tourists have to line a 45-cm wide pavement,'' he said.
The thought of taking the iconic statue out of its newly improved surroundings at the Galleria dell'Accademia drew a sharp response from the head of the city's museums, Cristina Acidini.
Recalling that the city had spent millions of euros cleaning the statue and installing special anti-pollution systems in the Galleria, Acidini said ''such a landmark of world art can't just be used to aid the upgrade of an outlying district where the new 'music park' is envisaged''.
''There are very good historical reasons why the David is in the Accademia,'' she said, stressing how the city had worked hard to turn the museum into a flagship gallery of the Renaissance master's work in the heart of his native city.
A senator in ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, Paolo Amato, called Cocchi's idea a ''bizarre stunt'' aimed at raising the profile of the Maggio Musicale's new Auditorium - a pet project of Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli.
Florence culture chief Giovanni Gozzini said there should be no ''prejudicial'' resistance to the idea, which might ''substantially'' enhance a new cultural hub able to draw tourists away from the centre.
The head of a leading tourism body, Andrea Giannetti of Assotravel, has welcomed the idea because the narrow street where the Accademia is situated ''creates a bottle-neck''.
However, officials at the Accademia have stressed it would be ''extremely risky'' to move the masterpiece out of the building that has been its home since 1873, when it was removed from its original position in front of Palazzo Vecchio.
Accademia director Franca Falletti branded Cocchi's suggestion ''absolutely out of the question'' and stressed the statue's fragility.
An eight-month restoration to get it ready for its 500th birthday in 2004 revealed structural frailty, especially in the ankles, and the continuing impact on its surface of the bad air and street dirt brought in by millions of tourists.
In the light of these risks, some art experts even suggested the statue should be moved to the Accademia's cellar.
In the end the four-metre high statue, for centuries a symbol of virility, was placed behind a protective barrier of moving air.
Jets of air insulate it against the dust and particles which could corrode its delicate surface.
Special carpets remove dirt as visitors step up to admire it.
The statue was presented to the Florentine public in Piazza della Signoria in 1504.
It had been commissioned by the Florentine governors as an emblem of the city's pride and its ability, despite its small size, to defend itself against giants.
Michelangelo, who was still in his twenties at the time, chiselled the marble for three years and eventually created what soon came to represent the Renaissance ideal of manhood.
